Friday, January 27, 2006

As it turns out, most babies are born with blue eyes (perhaps this explains the phrase "baby blues"). Dr. Anne Marie Helmenstine of About.com explains that the transformation has to do with the protein melanin. Melanin is a brownish pigment that adds color to your hair, eyes, and skin. At the time babies are born, melanin hasn't yet been "deposited" in the eyes' iris. Hence, they appear blue. After about six months, eyes change color depending on the amount of melanin. If you have a lot of it, your eyes will turn brown or black. If you have little, they'll stay blue. And if you have no melanin, your eyes may appear pink. Interestingly, as the site notes, human beings aren't the only creatures with freaky color-morphing eyeballs. Kittens experience the same phenomenon.

And here all the while I thought I had blue eyes because of something special or "extra" inside. Come to find out, it was just something I was missing all along...

So much of Nature and Life is crafted in this same fashion. Rainbows, sunsets, seasons, human life, snowflakes, shooting stars, etc. If we take the time, we are most likely able to emperically explain the very basic chemical composition and scientific process of most earthly phenomena. We may know that the major element of grand sunsets is dust, but it doesn't change our fondness in watching them. We may know that the very nature of shimmering shooting stars is simply meteoric chunks entering our atmosphere, but that rarely stops us from make a wish when seeing one.

Human emotion. This is one process that continues to baffle, amaze, confound and inspire scientists worldwide... and most likely will continue to do so for all time. It's when love and kindness and hope and wonder are involved in experiencing earthly phenomena that "chemical composition and scientific process" are thrown out the window. And for the majority of the time, that's a good thing.

I used to wonder how two very different persons ever found each other, were attracted to each other, chose to spend the rest of their lives together, birthed children together and eventually walked with each other to the grave. At a single glance, we've all said, "What on earth ever attracted these two individuals together?" Human emotion - it's probably more complex and sophisticated than any scientific process in this universe. It's unpredictable enough to bring two separate and different individuals together, simply because of attraction. It's mysterious enough that it allows for another to lay down their life based on hope and compassion. It's glorious enough to cause an individual to continue on through earthly challenges and pains, out of a sense of hope. In my opinion, it's one of the Creator's greatest gifts and riddles to humankind.

My wife seems to love my blue eyes. She says that particularly colored clothes bring out the blue even more so. I, on the other hand, love my wife's brown eyes and can get lost in their depth. I'm sure, given enough time, we both could better explain and understand the physiological and metaphysical processes occurring that create and maintain this attraction and liking... but then again - lack of melanin or not - it's simply love, so don't fight it.

You may find that wishing on descending chunks of meteoric matter to be soothing, so go on wishing. You may know there is no pot of gold at the end of a physical rainbow, but it feels good just to imagine it... so go on imagining. You may know that every snowflake is structurally different from each other, but shouldn't stop you from standing in its midst and catching them on your tongue. You see, my friend, these emotions and attractions and passions may very well have been placed inside each of us at our birth to counterbalance that simple analytical side of each of us. It is these emotions and attractions and passions that remind us that we're not just a living being, but that we're ALIVE! Enjoy them, revel in them, give thanks for them.

It's great to know the physical/scientific process of our world and beyond, but sometimes it's even greater just to simply wonder and imagine while viewing that same world and beyond through our baby blues... or browns or hazels...